I am sure it will surprise you to learn I have said things I regret on the internet and twitter specifically. If there's a medium better designed for hostile, half-thought chirping at everyone I am not aware of it. Here's an example. Earlier this year I got mad at a famous-ish author/twitterer for how he handled a spoiler that I did not actually care about on his twitter feed. And then I got mad at his author friend for implying right-thinking people prefer spoilers. And then self-righteously unloaded on a 3rd author friend (editor?) for implying I was a child for not liking spoilers by mimicking me with the internet version of a baby voice. Do I still kinda think that last guy was a dick about things? Yeah. Do I wish famous-ish people would not believe their own press releases? Yeah. Am I proud of how I handled myself. Not so much. The worst part of this being that another twitter personality I follow turns out to have written a book on C. S. Lewis I quite liked. And follows those people. And may have seen that exchange. I find it mortifying that he might have seen that particular exchange and how I handled my end of things. He is someone I would potentially like to talk with, but if he saw that would he think the same of me?
More recently, upon the advent of another Apple product, and the requisite hosannas and hallelujahs and golden trumpets that attend such an event, I went on a rant about hype and how much I hates it. I do. I hate hype and hype culture. It's like being in love with the promises of those snake oil salesmen who used to get run out of town on a rail for bilking the gullible out of money with lies. Because it'll be totally different this time. But it is probably unkind and unwise and hypocritical of me to berate others for the "crime" of anticipating a new thing, especially if I'm not going to put out a better argument for why we should collectively ignore the hype machine other than "I hates it." I believe there is an argument to be made there, but I have not yet made it. So, my apologies to all my friends and not-friends and extended twitter family for that rant. I regrets it.
Please, do not put away your rotten tomatoes yet, there is more. Speaking of hypocrisy ....
The universe, in it's infinite, if potentially non-personal, wisdom strives to keep me humble. Shortly after that hype rant my old 4s iphone broke. After briefly debating whether to downgrade or go android or whatever, I decided just to get another iphone, the iphone 6. Because everything I own is apple, because they all talk nicely to each other without much fiddling, because I had been eligible for an upgrade for over a year, because, because, because I'm a hypocrite. A little bit. Or a lot a bit. In any case, my rant was ringing in my mind as I hit the "buy" button.
At this time, I would encourage you to send your rotten tomatoes to British Airways, who will route them to me in good time.
The truth about most of my rants is that the real target is me, and how I am responding or not responding to the environment in which I find myself. The rest of you are all but casualties in my ongoing conflict with myself and my choices. Yes, hype sucks. Yes, Apple hype sucks. Yes, I own their products anyway. I just want to use them though, not worship them like tiny mechanical gods. I have a vision of adulthood that entails picking up a tool when you need it, and putting it down and forgetting about it when you don't. I am still trying to articulate and live up to that vision. And, I don't know if you've noticed, but advertising and consumerism has kind of lost touch with reality in terms of fantastical claims and cult followings. So I believe in any case. But it doesn't excuse me from yelling at everyone else for my discomfort with the beliefs and practices of modern consumer culture and my decisions, hypocritical and not, within it.
So, sorry for yelling at everyone about hype. Sorry for being a hypocrite. When I have an argument to make about it, I'll try to do it here with something resembling coherent logic rather than just chirping at you all on twitter.
No comments:
Post a Comment